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RE: Can it be unethical to go for the buffet?
Welp socialism is based on principles that you see in eating/cooking.
It is no fun to eat alone. You want everyone at your table to be sated. Generally meals are not paid by every single person according to what they eat, unless you are eating out 3 times a day.
On buffets, restaurants make a good chunk of their money through drinks. There is a limit to how much you can eat (abuse the system) and it is easier to make a big pile of a few items instead of cooking on demand, The coordination of a la carte makes most of the price difference already (waiters, more cooks).
Thank you, @thatgermandude, both for your up-vote as well as your thought-provoking comment. :c)
Oh, quite agreed. Eating is best a social event - even if one can do it solo. Just - less so in a restaurant.
Now, one reason that I began reflecting upon this matter is because a person whom I know once mentioned that she doesn't like to go to buffets with another friend of mine - because this other friend is thin and has a much more conservative appetite 'and' makes her feel uncomfortable eating as much as she'd like to (I, incidentally, don't have that problem).
I had managed to overlook the drinks factor in determining the profitability of a meal - so thank you for pointing such out to me.
I also appreciate that 'many' buffet scenarios keep their costs low through limiting selection - and that in the grand scheme of things a person like me eating to satisfaction is not that much more costly than another thin person eating to satisfaction. :c) Yes, a la carte does involve more overheads.
It seems to me that the buffet scenario is much less of an issue than I previously thought - being much less troublesome than over-eating a la carte on a shared tab.
my man, I appreciate you taking my criticism not as me trying bash your ideas. I do see the similarities between the buffet and communism and I never really thought about it much until reading your article, so thanks for the thought provocation as well ;).
I am actually not a big fan of buffets, just because it is often food that is held warm, the only good buffets include stationary cooks who cook on demand :3.
The best kind of restaurant is where you get 3 different menus and that's it. It usually guarantees good quality and freshness of the ingredients. This used to be a thing in Germany that luckily has a comeback, even professional shitheads like Gordon Ramsay advocate this system, a huge a la carte offering is usually a give away sign of a bad restaurant.
Btw only poor people pay separately in Germany (like me :D). Most of the time you will see people paying the whole bill. Partly because of convinience partly because of the traditional sharing element associated with eating (See Thanksgiving).
So you could say I dont really advocate communism (buffet) although I see it merits, I also dont like when everybody has to pay for every grain of rice he ate (Capitalism) although I see the justice in it, I think it would ruin the mood if I need to make a contract about who eats what part of the turkey. I endorse traditional cooking and voluntaristic share of the meal (classic liberal socialism with a touch of conservatism). :)
I must admit that I'd been resisting the parallels drawn between menu types and socio-political systems. :cP More like it flew over my head the first time.
Its a novel comparison actually - and I see no merit in bashing such perspective.
The kinds of buffets that are kept warm tend to be the lower quality ones - particularly if its a slow day of business (less frequent replacements). Quite agreed that those including stationary cooks on the go tend to be better.
I am of two minds about menu variety necessarily being an indicator for poor quality - but I do agree that its easier to focus upon getting a narrower selection right and consistently so. :c)
You will find all sorts. Some insist on paying the tab while others prefer to 'go Dutch'. I'd agree that the personal economic considerations of the persons in question has a hand in determining such.
The only reason that I don't like linking communism with buffet is because communism itself has negative connotations. :c) Both communism and other terms need to undergo a period of detox so that they may exist independently of politically-expedient baggage that finds itself manifest in the most darnedest of ways.
Yeah, I mean it is a little funny how alot of the American liberty and anarcho movement is still buying everything of the cold war propaganda against socialism and communism. The USA abuses the terms freedom and liberty as much as socialism and communism were abused terms by the UDSSR and China.
To make one last statement as a food analogy: I will promote the way I cook and the way I want to eat, however that does not mean that I want to force people to like the things I cook or eat the way I think is best. You can have your stale buffet food or charge your friends for the food you give to them, maybe I don't want to be your friend then, but I don't want to imprison you or prevent your table culture from existing (by force).
'Grins'
You clearly haven't tried Okurama's buffet. ;c)
But yes I do understand that this is a matter of "To each his/her own".
And I'm not even going to get started on the ethical inconsistencies that we've seen this past couple of decades. :c/
Thank you again @thatgermandude. :c)